Eli Osheyack recently returned from a decade in Shanghai where he became involved in the cityās burgeoning underground electronic scene. The American producerās new album Intimate Publics is a paean to his time in Shanghai and an embattled scene which negotiated first official harassment and later complete closure during the COVID-19 āwhole-area static managementā lockdown. Osheyack seeks to create a virtual place in which the erstwhile club-goers of Shanghai can reconvene in the absence of venues. In the context of both China and COVID-19, the loss of dedicated spaces in which to celebrate subculture and otherness has extra significance.
Osheyack starts hard with the gqom influenced āEdging.ā Jittery percussion races across jabbing synths and disembodied vocal samples. Without a bottom end, it hits more like the soundtrack to a superfast time-lapse of commuter crowd thronging to work than for dancers seeking strobe-lit escape from the mundane. āThrallā adds a robotic voice, juddering bass notes and layers of glitch that threaten to shake the rivets from the machine. āStillā is a complete change of pace and tone, a deranged yet haunting auto-tuned a cappella built from samples used to voice virtual idols in Japan. It interrogates the intersection of technology and conformity. Not until the closing track aptly named āReificationā can you detect traces of Chinese music in the ambient mix of struck strings, gongs and bells
Capturing the communal essence of a living scene has always been a difficult exercise. However, if recordings lack that immediacy and intimacy, they also create their public and instigate connection between artists and fans. Osheyack is explicit in his intent to evoke memories and impressions of a time and place, to pay homage to a community and foster communication, which seems a basic motivation for making art in the first place.
Electronica is constantly evolving and atomizing with a Sisyphean determination to avoid homogeneity. It voraciously swallows elements of each new sub-genre and regional innovation. Many will dismiss Intimate Publics as a time capsule which captures only a fleeting glimpse of what made the Shanghai scene unique, but its energy and weirdness deserves a wider audience.
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